ART-PRESENTATION: Yayoi Kusama-Dots Obsession
Yayoi Kusama is taking three of her world-renowned works to New Canaan, Connecticut to help the Glass House celebrate two big moments in its history : its 10th anniversary since it opened to the public and what would have been architect Philip Johnson’s 110th birthday. The works are (“Narcissus Garden”, “Pumpkin” (2015) and a special installation of her “Infinity Room).
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: The Glass House Archive
From her youth, Yayoi Kusama has experienced what she calls “Hallucinations”. At 10 years old, the artist tricked her eye, starting at the “The red floral pattern of a table cloth” and then experiencing a lasting after image as she looked at the other surfaces around her. Yayoi Kusama as her third work for Philip Johnson’s Glass House, created a special installation “Dots Obsession – Alive, Seeking for Eternal Hope”. The Glass House’s window walls and doors allow the artist to create a one-of-a-kind signature “infinity room.” The polka dots directly engage the architecture of the Glass House, complementing its structure and aesthetics, breathing new life into the house. For Kusama, the polka dot represents an individual, its own universe. Similarly, Philip Johnson created his own private universe at the Glass House, sculpting every aspect of landscape experience into his own universe. As the Yayoi Kusama said “My desire is to measure and to make order of the infinite, unbounded universe from my own position within it, with polka dots. In exploring this, the single dot is my own life, and I am a single particle amongst billions. I work with the principal themes of infinity, self-image, and compulsive repetition in objects and forms, such as the steel spheres of Narcissus Garden and the mirrored walls I have created”. Unlike her other infinity rooms, “Dots Obsession – Alive, Seeking for Eternal Hope” has covered only with vinyl Pepsi red polka dots and interacts with the natural environment instead of being enclosed. It is about the reflections in the glass, the shadows that the polka dots cast and the colors playing against the green outside.
Info: Curator: Irene Shum, The Glass House, 199 Elm Street, New Canaan, Duration: 1-26/9/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 9:30-18:00, Sun 11:00-18:00, You have to book in advance, http://theglasshouse.org
